Marta González Catalán, PhD
NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST
Dr. González Catalán is an Instructor at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School. She is also a bilingual clinical neuropsychologist, conducting evaluations with diverse adult patients at the MGH Neuropsychology Institute. She received her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Palo Alto University. She then completed her psychology residency at Tewksbury Hospital and her postdoctoral fellowship in clinical neuropsychology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Her graduate research looked at the interaction of psychiatric and medical comorbidities in individuals with neurocognitive disorders. Her clinical and research interests focus on aging, cultural neuropsychology, and neurodegenerative diseases. She joined the Lab in December 2022 and collaborates on ongoing MAPP projects with aging Latino populations. In her free time, she enjoys traveling to her home country of Spain, trying new restaurants, reading mystery novels, and playing table tennis.
Email: [email protected]
Liliana Ramírez-Gómez, MD
NEUROLOGIST
Dr. Ramirez Gomez has been faculty at the Multicultural Alzheimer Prevention Program (MAPP)since its foundation in 2018 and is a member of the CADLAS (US Consortium of Aging, Dementia, and Latino Studies). Dr. Ramirez Gomez is the Clinical Director of the Memory Disorders Division at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. At MGH, Dr. Ramirez Gomez created a comprehensive neurology clinic focused on providing culturally sensitive care for Spanish-speaking patients. In 2023, Dr. Ramirez Gomez was the first woman from Latin America to receive the prestigious Norman Geschwind Award in Behavioral Neurology from the American Academy of Neurology.
Her research goals are to identify preclinical biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and related dementias (AD/ADRD) and find ways to assist better underserved Spanish language populations with dementia, including patients and their caregivers. She received a minority diversity supplement from the National Institute on Aging to study whether changes in the ability to remember odors can serve as a novel specific biomarker for Alzheimer’s Disease and understand the relationship between AD neuropathological changes and the onset of changes in olfactory function.
Dr. Ramirez Gomez also works on developing interventions to help improve emotional well-being and caregiver skills in Spanish-speaking family dementia caregivers. Dr. Ramirez Gomez completed a study of an adaptation of mentalizing imagery therapy intervention for Spanish-speaking caregivers. She found that it was feasible and acceptable, and there was a reduction in depression symptoms, perceptions of caregiver burden, and improved well-being. With the current support of the Alzheimer’s Association and the MADRC, she is working on developing virtual and mobile therapies for caregivers in English and Spanish.
She enjoys spending time with family and friends, hiking and relaxing in nature.
Email:[email protected]
X/Twitter: @LRamirezGomezMD
Daniel Saldana, PhD
NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST
Dr. Daniel Saldana is a psychologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and an Instructor in Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (HMS). He joined MGH in October 2023 as a bilingual (English and Spanish) clinical neuropsychologist. Dr. Saldana received his doctoral degree in clinical psychology from City University of New York (CUNY), Queens College. He completed his internship and post-doctoral chief fellowship in lifespan cultural neuropsychology at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Semel Institute, Hispanic Neuropsychiatric Center of Excellence (HNCE). Dr. Saldana’s graduate research investigated the effects of deep diaphragmatic breathing training on cognitive functioning in healthy young adults. More broadly, Dr. Saldana is interested in cognitive training and has published chapters on the game of chess, elucidating the cognitive differences between experts and novices, and cognitive training across the lifespan. His clinical interests are focused on investigating differences between monolingual and bilingual/multicultural neuropsychological assessment. In his free time, he enjoys cooking, playing volleyball, practicing chess, and writing fiction.
Email: [email protected]